Debt Crisis

[kmcrawfo]

With the recent downgrade of the US credit rating by S&P I came across this article regarding the recent 2011 Budget and Debt Ceiling Deal. I thought it was an interesting way to lay things out:

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:

U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Amount cut from the budget: $385

[Snipe]

Man is that sad. And some people think you are a radical terrorist for wanting to balance the budget.

I don't care if we cut defense or grandma. I don't care if we cut welfare queens or agricultural subsidies.

I simply don't care how they do it, but I demand a balanced budget. And I don't want a ten year plan that leaves it to future leaders, I want it today. We need to only spend what we take in. Screw everyone else.

This is going to be a huge fight. Grandma will fight. Welfare queens will fight. And they all need to fight against each other. We can't fund all of it, and we need to decide what we want to keep and what goes on the scrap heap of history.

To me, I want to fund some social security and some medicare, but I want to abolish mostly the federal departments of education, agriculture, transportation, homeland security and a few others. We don't need them and we need to concentrate on necessities. I would also seek to pay less to house criminals, because we can't afford it. Cut the heat, cut the A/C, and cut out their medical treatment if need be. The rest of us can't afford them. The median income is close to what it costs to house a prisoner for a year, and I don't like those odds. Let us free the non-violent ones or give them better standing and pay little to care for violent offenders. We should have separate jails for violent offenders, and we should fund them very little so they struggle and hate life. I don't care about rehabilitation, I care about cost reduction. You might have both if you try it out too, perhaps the namby pamby rehabilitation wonks have it all wrong, and hard times reforms people better.

Hell, for every violent criminal in jail, think of what we could save if we just put a bullet in the back of their head right now. We might not need to cut education, police and firemen if we just got rid of them. They suck off society and we pay a huge lot to have them tried and put away. Just be done with the lot of them and we would have more money. Get rid of them.

Most people don't agree with that now, but the Overton Window is an ever shifting thing. What can't be an option today might well be good fiscal policy tomorrow. You could be very surprised how things change over time.

[xubrew]

Man is that sad. And some people think you are a radical terrorist for wanting to balance the budget.

I don't care if we cut defense or grandma. I don't care if we cut welfare queens or agricultural subsidies.

I simply don't care how they do it, but I demand a balanced budget. And I don't want a ten year plan that leaves it to future leaders, I want it today. We need to only spend what we take in. Screw everyone else.

This is going to be a huge fight. Grandma will fight. Welfare queens will fight. And they all need to fight against each other. We can't fund all of it, and we need to decide what we want to keep and what goes on the scrap heap of history.

To me, I want to fund some social security and some medicare, but I want to abolish mostly the federal departments of education, agriculture, transportation, homeland security and a few others. We don't need them and we need to concentrate on necessities. I would also seek to pay less to house criminals, because we can't afford it. Cut the heat, cut the A/C, and cut out their medical treatment if need be. The rest of us can't afford them. The median income is close to what it costs to house a prisoner for a year, and I don't like those odds. Let us free the non-violent ones or give them better standing and pay little to care for violent offenders. We should have separate jails for violent offenders, and we should fund them very little so they struggle and hate life. I don't care about rehabilitation, I care about cost reduction. You might have both if you try it out too, perhaps the namby pamby rehabilitation wonks have it all wrong, and hard times reforms people better.

Hell, for every violent criminal in jail, think of what we could save if we just put a bullet in the back of their head right now. We might not need to cut education, police and firemen if we just got rid of them. They suck off society and we pay a huge lot to have them tried and put away. Just be done with the lot of them and we would have more money. Get rid of them.

Most people don't agree with that now, but the Overton Window is an ever shifting thing. What can't be an option today might well be good fiscal policy tomorrow. You could be very surprised how things change over time.

Rational insanity. Hell, at least it's rational...

[smileyy]

OTOH, it appears that the stock market doesn't give a *($# about the debt crisis, but does care that nobody in government cares about American jobs and the economy.

[Snipe]

"That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable." ~ Milton Friedman

That is the Overton Window right there. The impossible becomes the inevitable.

Good Times!

[madness31]

I warned that the Tea Party wouldn't change anything. Everyone has their pet project or party agenda to uphold so budgets never get balanced. Republicans won't cut military and won't allow tax increases on anyone regardless of the fundamentals. Democrats won't give up social security and medicare without tax hikes on the wealthy.

Buy gold. Then buy more gold and when you finish with that buy some more gold.

[Jumpy]

I warned that the Tea Party wouldn't change anything. Everyone has their pet project or party agenda to uphold so budgets never get balanced. Republicans won't cut military and won't allow tax increases on anyone regardless of the fundamentals. Democrats won't give up social security and medicare without tax hikes on the wealthy.

Buy gold. Then buy more gold and when you finish with that buy some more gold.

For the small foothold in DC that they have, I think the Tea Party has done a lot. If left to only the exisiting parties, do you think we would have seen any type of budget cuts in the debt ceiling deal?

They might not have effected substantial change, but to get a ball that big rolling, it will have to start slow. At least they now have debt reduction and government reform in the forefront of the voters' eyes coming into the '12 elections. Hell, they've even got the Republicans making it an issue so as not to be left behind.

If we truly want to see debt reduction, go to the polls, vote early, vote often and vote Tea Party.

[boozehound]

For the small foothold in DC that they have, I think the Tea Party has done a lot. If left to only the exisiting parties, do you think we would have seen any type of budget cuts in the debt ceiling deal?

They might not have effected substantial change, but to get a ball that big rolling, it will have to start slow. At least they now have debt reduction and government reform in the forefront of the voters' eyes coming into the '12 elections. Hell, they've even got the Republicans making it an issue so as not to be left behind.

If we truly want to see debt reduction, go to the polls, vote early, vote often and vote Tea Party.

While I can agree that the tea party is the best chance for debt reduction I still don't believe that it will be meaningful debt reduction.

Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI are still big issues. The future estimated payouts of those programs over the next 20 years are staggering. I read an interesting article in Business Week that basically said that the 55 and up crowd is unwilling to give up anything that they are "owed" from SSI and Medicare. There are enough of these people right now that they have enormous voting power which is why even republican and tea party candidates are loathe to touch Social Security or Medicare. Health Care will bankrupt this country in the next 20-30 years.

[bigdiggins]

Buy gold. Then buy more gold and when you finish with that buy some more gold.

Buy low sell high. Buying gold at basically its all time high is asking for the bubble to burst and take you with it.

[Jumpy]

While I can agree that the tea party is the best chance for debt reduction I still don't believe that it will be meaningful debt reduction.

Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI are still big issues. The future estimated payouts of those programs over the next 20 years are staggering. I read an interesting article in Business Week that basically said that the 55 and up crowd is unwilling to give up anything that they are "owed" from SSI and Medicare. There are enough of these people right now that they have enormous voting power which is why even republican and tea party candidates are loathe to touch Social Security or Medicare. Health Care will bankrupt this country in the next 20-30 years.

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but we can't use that as an excuse to not try. It will be tough going, especially now- in the beginning. The groundwork must be laid now so that substantial change can be made down the road.